(We originally posted this in 2020. You can read more of our original ideas in our archive.)
Problem: People often think that they know themselves, but they don’t. However, job interviews revolve around individuals describing their own strengths and weaknesses (which they often don’t know very well) to the place they would like to work. What if there was a way to interview a candidate’s friends, to hear from their friends’ perspectives, or to chat with a candidate’s coworkers’ experiences in the job interview process? What if “+1s” and “peer-referrals” were taken more seriously?
Solution: The business would aim to build “peer judgement networks” to get a more concrete understanding of what potential employees are like. I remember in high school when I was applying to college, some schools required that a friend write a recommendation letter for me. This was stressful (of course), but it gave the institutions I applied to some insight into what types of friends I have and how these friends choose to write about me. Bringing these sort of metrics more formally into the professional world could definitely prove extremely useful for better matching people to potential jobs and roles.
LinkedIn has implemented an opportunity for connections to rate each other skills (see below). However, it lacks in developing a transparent way to measure what other people are skilled at (I suppose the “Skills and Endorsements” section is designed to fix this; however, I never look at it and don’t find it particularly insightful).
Bridgewater Associates’ Baseball Cards are another example of this idea in reality. The idea would play in the multi-billion dollar HR and recruiting space.
Monetization: Selling access to this portal to recruiters.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)